Reapers and Collectors vs. UNSC

[DrStrangelove]

It's patently obvious. The alliance cruisers are not making any progress, then after you kill Saren, the shields immediately drop completely to zero.

So it couldn't be the fact that the Alliance had been pounding on him for however long, and that their efforts to bring down the barriers happened to coincide with Saren getting shot in the head. Saren was intimately tied into Soveriegn's defense systems because...err...the giant robot's an idiot? Having a disposable puppet that hurts you when it kicks the bucket kinda defeats the purpose of having one in the first place.

I mean, people make fun of the Reapers being stupid, but even that's a bit much.

It's the standard excuse, usually used by rabid ME fans, to explain how a Reaper which usually tank planet gouging rounds, are killed by 20-30 ships with low and subkiloton weapons without weeks of bombardment.

[Stargazer]

It's the only explanation. EDI spells out in ME2 that Reaper barriers (this being the Reaper that was derelict for millions of years) are impervious to dreadnought fire. Oddly, there weren't any dreadnoughts even with the Alliance fleet. Also, it seems Shepard holds to the idea that killing Saren brought down Sovereign's shields- he says he saw what Sovereign did to the Alliance and Citadel fleets, and it's hard to believe anything could bring it down. Implying that it was not the efforts of the Alliance and Citadel fleets that brought it down. It's strange that destroying Saren stunned Sovereign, but there you have it.

[Ford Prefect]

So it couldn't be the fact that the Alliance had been pounding on him for however long, and that their efforts to bring down the barriers happened to coincide with Saren getting shot in the head.

The idea that Shepard killing husk-Saren immediately preceding Sovereign's shields dropping is nothing but coincidence is pretty hilarious. It's exactly how the sequence is framed: you win the battle and in the cutscene following Sovereign falls off the tower and someone says 'its shields are down, hit it with all we've got'. It's patently obvious that Shepard is directly responsible for, which is even how other people take it in ME2. They dont' say 'you were present when the Fifth Fleet killed a Reaper', they say 'you killed a Reaper'.

[Balrog]

The idea that Shepard killing husk-Saren immediately preceding Sovereign's shields dropping is nothing but coincidence is pretty hilarious. It's exactly how the sequence is framed: you win the battle and in the cutscene following Sovereign falls off the tower and someone says 'its shields are down, hit it with all we've got'.

Funny, I've seen this same kind of reasoning for why the domes atop Star Destroyers are shield generators, using the sequence as framed regarding the death of the Executor in RotJ. An argument usually not well liked by many fans though.

It's patently obvious that Shepard is directly responsible for, which is even how other people take it in ME2. They dont' say 'you were present when the Fifth Fleet killed a Reaper', they say 'you killed a Reaper'.

Yeah, because he was responsible for killing a Reaper, in part by calling in the fleet. He gets the credit because Shepard is the hero of the story and no one ever pays attention to the Navy mooks who do all the real work Unless these people were being very literal in saying Shepard killed Sovereign, and are in a position to know.

[DrStrangelove]

It's the only explanation. EDI spells out in ME2 that Reaper barriers (this being the Reaper that was derelict for millions of years) are impervious to dreadnought fire. Oddly, there weren't any dreadnoughts even with the Alliance fleet. Also, it seems Shepard holds to the idea that killing Saren brought down Sovereign's shields- he says he saw what Sovereign did to the Alliance and Citadel fleets, and it's hard to believe anything could bring it down. Implying that it was not the efforts of the Alliance and Citadel fleets that brought it down. It's strange that destroying Saren stunned Sovereign, but there you have it.

Sorry even without shields, to survive a planet gouging KEW mostly in one piece, a reapers hull should be functionally immune to low kiloton and below weapons.

[Stargazer]

The idea that Shepard killing husk-Saren immediately preceding Sovereign's shields dropping is nothing but coincidence is pretty hilarious. It's exactly how the sequence is framed: you win the battle and in the cutscene following Sovereign falls off the tower and someone says 'its shields are down, hit it with all we've got'.

Funny, I've seen this same kind of reasoning for why the domes atop Star Destroyers are shield generators, using the sequence as framed regarding the death of the Executor in RotJ. An argument usually not well liked by many fans though.

Not to start an argument or anything, but it would appear from the scene in RotJ to the casual viewer that the globes were shield generators- we see one blow up earlier, then directly after the second blows up, the bridge shakes, and a person says "We've lost our bridge deflectors!" Only because of EU tech guides and such do we know that the globes are supposed to be sensors- whoever wrote that must not have remembered that scene. We don't have an specific source denying the similar sequence for the loss of Sovereign's shields, so the comparison is invalid.

Sorry even without shields, to survive a planet gouging KEW mostly in one piece, a reapers hull should be functionally immune to low kiloton and below weapons.

How do you figure that? It's simple- shields negate most of the hit, but don't stop it all, enough to still kill the reaper.

[adam_grif]

Not to start an argument or anything, but it would appear from the scene in RotJ to the casual viewer that the globes were shield generators- we see one blow up earlier, then directly after the second blows up, the bridge shakes, and a person says "We've lost our bridge deflectors!" Only because of EU tech guides and such do we know that the globes are supposed to be sensors- whoever wrote that must not have remembered that scene. We don't have an specific source denying the similar sequence for the loss of Sovereign's shields, so the comparison is invalid.

In all the RS games, they're shield generators. Not that those games are the pinnacle of source faithfulness...

[Ghost Rider]

The idea that Shepard killing husk-Saren immediately preceding Sovereign's shields dropping is nothing but coincidence is pretty hilarious. It's exactly how the sequence is framed: you win the battle and in the cutscene following Sovereign falls off the tower and someone says 'its shields are down, hit it with all we've got'.

Funny, I've seen this same kind of reasoning for why the domes atop Star Destroyers are shield generators, using the sequence as framed regarding the death of the Executor in RotJ. An argument usually not well liked by many fans though.

Not to start an argument or anything, but it would appear from the scene in RotJ to the casual viewer that the globes were shield generators- we see one blow up earlier, then directly after the second blows up, the bridge shakes, and a person says "We've lost our bridge deflectors!" Only because of EU tech guides and such do we know that the globes are supposed to be sensors- whoever wrote that must not have remembered that scene. We don't have an specific source denying the similar sequence for the loss of Sovereign's shields, so the comparison is invalid.

Which is why that casual viewer is a fucking moron for not thinking if he or she thinks that. Think for a fucking second, how the fuck are they hitting shield generators...under the shield? Or is now the presumption is that the casual viewer assembled a line of logic that is "Generators are outside the shield, thus unprotected, thus making this possibly one of the dumbest fucking designs ever.".

[Batman]

They CAN'T have been the relevant shield generators for the very reason that they DID get blown to pieces. Which couldn't have happened if the shields were still up. The very fact that the dome got destroyed means the shields were ALREADY down at least locally.

[Ford Prefect]

Which is why that casual viewer is a fucking moron for not thinking if he or she thinks that. Think for a fucking second, how the fuck are they hitting shield generators...under the shield? Or is now the presumption is that the casual viewer assembled a line of logic that is "Generators are outside the shield, thus unprotected, thus making this possibly one of the dumbest fucking designs ever.".

To be fair, the Invisible Hand had exactly that sort of design ethic for its hangar bay shields.

[Batman]

For the hangar's atmosphere containment field. NOT the combat shields.

[adam_grif]

Solely going by the movies up until that point, the idea that the generator isn't necessarily protected by the shield is not unreasonable. We had that exact thing with the Hoth rebel shield generator, and in TPM we had the shield generator on the naboo royal craft thingy getting hit while shields were still up. It's something you could chalk up to a design oversight at the very least.

[Ford Prefect]

For the hangar's atmosphere containment field. NOT the combat shields.

Uh, dude, no need to get so defensive, and even saying it's 'only' the atmosphere containment field still doesn't make it anything other than totally dumb.

[Ghost Rider]

Which is why that casual viewer is a fucking moron for not thinking if he or she thinks that. Think for a fucking second, how the fuck are they hitting shield generators...under the shield? Or is now the presumption is that the casual viewer assembled a line of logic that is "Generators are outside the shield, thus unprotected, thus making this possibly one of the dumbest fucking designs ever.".

To be fair, the Invisible Hand had exactly that sort of design ethic for its hangar bay shields.

And goes to show why they lost

[Samuel]

Solely going by the movies up until that point, the idea that the generator isn't necessarily protected by the shield is not unreasonable. We had that exact thing with the Hoth rebel shield generator, and in TPM we had the shield generator on the naboo royal craft thingy getting hit while shields were still up. It's something you could chalk up to a design oversight at the very least.

Hoth's generator was under the shield- that was why they had to land the walkers.

[DrStrangelove]

How do you figure that? It's simple- shields negate most of the hit, but don't stop it all, enough to still kill the reaper.

You realize it's still useless as evidence, still have no way to know how much energy hit the reaper

[adam_grif]

How do you figure that? It's simple- shields negate most of the hit, but don't stop it all, enough to still kill the reaper.

You realize it's still useless as evidence, still have no way to know how much energy hit the reaper

His reasoning is a statement from TIM to the effect of "we found the gun that did the rift on blah blah and it killed a reaper!" or something. Of course this is the same organization that was so fucking stupid that it didn't bother to ship over noise canceling headsets for the crew working on the Eldrich abomination that they already know is still active except for it's higher brain function. The character is definately fallible.

But really, if Reaper shields really take the terratonnes or higher of firepower necessary to create a massive canyon stretching across thousands of kilometers visible from space on an Earth sized planet, after surviving reentry, then the whole "I need a geth fleet to forcibly take the Citadel" thing is total crap. No ship in the galaxy could take that, and it wouldn't have even had to bother returning fire. The Citadel opens up and then the reaper army comes through.

The whole reason he tried to be subtle was that Sovereign couldn't take the Citadel fleet in a fight. I can't fucking remember where they said that in ME1, whether it was the Codex or a character or something. It's driving me insane.

[Ford Prefect]

Of course this is the same organization that was so fucking stupid that it didn't bother to ship over noise canceling headsets for the crew working on the Eldrich abomination that they already know is still active except for it's higher brain function.

Do you seriously think that blocking your ears is appropriate protection against indoctrination? The sound that a Reaper makes is clearly only an element of it, there has been an ill-defined 'energy field' which messes with people, and Benezia reckons that the very design of the rooms is designed to fuck with people. The only safe practice for working onboard a Reaper is to not be working on board a Reaper.

[adam_grif]

Do you seriously think that blocking your ears is appropriate protection against indoctrination? The sound that a Reaper makes is clearly only an element of it, there has been an ill-defined 'energy field' which messes with people, and Benezia reckons that the very design of the rooms is designed to fuck with people. The only safe practice for working onboard a Reaper is to not be working on board a Reaper.

I have no idea, but it's better than the jack fucking shit they did to stop it. The videos of the dudes on board the Reaper, even before indoctrination, they had no hearing protection, weren't wearing hard-suits, or anything like that. Codex states that it uses subliminal messaging (loldongs) and infrasound, but it's potentially fallible, and is an "in-universe" perspective. But if that's what they thought it was, then Hardsuits + noise canceling is like the most basic fucking thing you would try.

If you wanted to be really safe, you'd make use of the extensive telepresence tech that exists in the setting (telepresence mining = how they get eezo from around neutron stars). You'd take specific pieces of technology away from the reaper to a nearby research ship, shuttling back and forth, minimizing exposure to the damn thing. Anything not strapped down you do with a robotic avatar, and if there's something that simply can't be done like that then you send people on board for no more than a few hours at a time, taking shifts, and everybody that goes on board wears hardsuits. But no, they're just standing around on the totally functional reaper in their casual clothing having a chat about things.

[Stargazer]

The Reaper was dead. They may have incorrectly assumed that the indoctrination was no longer operating- a false assumption, but a reasonable one from their point of view.

[adam_grif]

The Reaper was dead. They may have incorrectly assumed that the indoctrination was no longer operating- a false assumption, but a reasonable one from their point of view.

Why would they assume that? Everything was operational, including the mass effect core, with the sole exception that there didn't seem to be any high level decision making going on. That they did not take the precaution is immense stupidity on their part. Illusive man says that the incident was "unfortunate but unsurprising". Really, jackass? Your science teams are so worthless to you?

[Stargazer]

Hey, less people who know secrets, less people who can spill secrets.

[Mayabird]

I always got the impression that the Illusive Man was a sociopath, liar, narcissist, and general asshole who was playing at being a chessmaster, some rich brat who found the biggest game in the galaxy. Not saying he was stupid exactly (if he was completely stupid he would've been killed off a long time ago), but he was far too fond of sacrificing all his pawns for his schemes and forgetting that it's not a damn game and the pieces could tell him to fuck off.

My conclusion here being that he intentionally left those people on the derelict Reaper to see if they would get indoctrinated and Husk-ified (and if so, watch it happen) as part 34G of section B3 of his Master Plan of something or other, a Plan that is probably fatally flawed by having no definite ending and being so ridiculously overcomplicated that it was already unraveling. For starters, one guy going crazy for no reason and reprogramming a bunch of mechs nearly derailed his entire "bring Commander Shepard back" part.

[Balrog]

Hooray, a Star Wars hijack

But really, if Reaper shields really take the terratonnes or higher of firepower necessary to create a massive canyon stretching across thousands of kilometers visible from space on an Earth sized planet, after surviving reentry, then the whole "I need a geth fleet to forcibly take the Citadel" thing is total crap. No ship in the galaxy could take that, and it wouldn't have even had to bother returning fire. The Citadel opens up and then the reaper army comes through.

The whole reason he tried to be subtle was that Sovereign couldn't take the Citadel fleet in a fight. I can't fucking remember where they said that in ME1, whether it was the Codex or a character or something. It's driving me insane.

That's the real kicker about why the whole argument is bunk. If Sovereign was so invincible as to require weapons on the order of the one that made the Klendagon trench just to kill him, then the entire first game was a waste of time. Who cares about Saren and the Conduit, just storm the Citadel, laugh as their puny weapons bounce of your barriers, and disgorge your army of Geth to retake the station. The fact that he went through all the trouble of avoiding a stand-up fight just proves that he is vulnerable to their ships, and therefore their weapons.

[Stargazer]

It was cautionary. The geth support was not so much on the space side, but on the ground side. Even if Sovereign was to assault the Citadel and wipe out the fleet around it, the operators would just close up the Citadel and keep Sovereign out. He needed an operative and army to find the backdoor to the Citadel, the Conduit, and keep the Citadel open for him. Things which Sovereign, being a giant space bug/starship, could not do. The fleet kind of came with the package of the geth army, and it wasn't like Sovereign would just leave it around. He wasn't avoiding a stand-up fight, it's just that a stand-up fight was not the key to getting in the Citadel.